Modi government rattled by Rahul’s Great Nicobar visit

The Congress on Sunday flagged in detail concerns related to ecology, tribal rights, transparency and security, over the Great Nicobar project, and asserted that these considerations must be debated in a parliamentary forum.
The opposition party claimed that the Modi government is “rattled” and in damage control mode after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Great Nicobar last week. In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, “The Modi Government, clearly in damage control mode after the hugely impactful visit of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, to Great Nicobar on April 28 2026, issued a press note on the Great Nicobar Island Development Project three days later.”
This press note does not address any of the serious concerns that have been raised on it by local affected communities, environmentalists, anthropologists, academics, civil society experts and other professionals, Ramesh said.
“These concerns had already been conveyed in detail by me to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests & Climate Change on September 10, 2024 and in a follow-up on September 27, 2024,” the former environment minister said.
During his visit to Great Nicobar, Gandhi last week alleged that the Great Nicobar project at Campbell Bay in Andaman and Nicobar Islands was “one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against the natural and tribal heritage of the country”.
The government on May 1 released a detailed statement with answers to FAQs (frequently asked questions).
“The Great Nicobar Project is a strategic initiative to strengthen India’s presence in the Andaman Sea. It seeks to balance port-led growth with calibrated environmental safeguards. Protection of indigenous communities remains central to its planning,” the government statement had said.
“The project combines strategic, economic, and ecological priorities. This ensures that development is sustainable, inclusive, and aligned with national interests,” it had said.
In his four-page detailed statement, Ramesh spelt out the key concerns over the Great Nicobar project. Flagging ecological concerns, Ramesh said the Great Nicobar is unique and distinctly different from all other islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group.
“The Government’s claim that only 1.82% of the total land of the island group is being used for the project is irrelevant and misleading. It ignores the ecological and biological richness of the Great Nicobar ecosystem, which is unique both in the island group and in the world,” he said.
“Galathea Bay, the site of the port, is unequivocally a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) is a site where port construction is not allowed. As per records of the Zoological Survey of India, Galathea Bay is home to more than 20,000 coral colonies, a key marker of a CRZ-1a categorisation. Similarly, the beach here is the most important nesting site of the Giant Leatherback turtle in the Northern Indian Ocean,” Ramesh said.
The recently concluded turtle nesting season saw record turtle nesting at Galathea Bay, he pointed out.
Ramesh alleged that institutions like the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) were literally coerced to play a key role in the environmental clearance and related process for the project.